


The Accident

by Traw



Category: Hawaii Five-O (1968)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-05-11 08:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5620222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traw/pseuds/Traw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Kokua stared at the shattered, burnt remains of what was once Danny’s LTD, wrapped around the base of a tree. He shook his head as his hand lightly touched a piece of the still warm, charred metal, he couldn’t believe that Danny was really gone. Forcing himself to turn away from the LTD, Ben looked back up the trail of broken and crushed undergrowth to the muddy road above before he looked back at Che, “Do you really think this was an accident?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Accident

Ben Kokua stared at the shattered, burnt remains of what was once Danny’s LTD, wrapped around the base of a tree. He shook his head as his hand lightly touched a piece of the still warm, charred metal, he couldn’t believe that Danny was really gone. What had started off as an easy Sunday, wrapping up cases while McGarrett was away, had now ended in tragedy. 

He swallowed hard as he remembered his light teasing of Danny earlier in the day, claiming the young detective’s decision to go to re-interview a witness in preparation of an upcoming court case was just an excuse for him sneak off to the North Shore to spend the rest of the day surfing the Pipe. Surf reports on the radio had stated that waves at the famous Pipeline were high and warned that the surf was suited for experienced surfers only. He knew the large waves and perfect barrels would have been almost irresistible to his surfing colleague.

He stared at the wreckage, still unable to believe that this was really happening and he found himself praying that Danny had not been conscious when the car had burst into flames.

“Danny would have died instantly.” Che said softly, lightly placing his hand on the Samoan detective’s back, answering Ben’s unvoiced fear before he asked, “Does Steve know?”

Ben swallowed hard and shook his head. “Chin tried to contact him after HPD contacted us about the…the accident. But the ship he is aboard is involved in some sort of military games and is observing complete radio silence for forty-eight hours. There’s no way to contact Steve until then.” Forcing himself to turn away from the LTD, Ben looked back up the trail of broken and crushed undergrowth to the muddy road above them before he looked back at Che, “Do you really think this was an accident?”

Che, startled by Ben’s question because of the overwhelming evidence of the skid marks on the muddy road above that indicated that Danny had lost control of his car as he rounded the bend in the road and that no other cars had been involved, stared at the upset detective and frowned. “Don’t you?”

Looking back at the wreckage in which Danny had lost his life only a few short hours before, Ben shrugged.


	2. Chapter 2

"He was only going to the North Shore to go over Sullivan's statements and help Sullivan prepare for the court case this week." Ben sighed as he leaned against the open lanai door and stared out over the palace grounds. He still could not believe that Danny was really gone."I teased him about trying to sneak off, while Steve's away, to go surfing the Pipe."

"Ben…" Chin said softly, in an attempt to stop the younger man's self-recrimination. Ben had taken Danny's death hard, only a member of the team for three short months, Ben had quickly become close friends with the youngest detective.

Spinning back to face the Chinese detective, Ben hit the wall behind him with his fist as he growled, "He was supposed to be on the North Shore, Chin, what was he even doing on that dirt road on the Pali?"

"I don't know, Bruddah." Chin answered quietly, the same questions that Ben was demanding answers to were also going through his mind. Questions he had no answers to. Danny had always been impulsive, maybe today that impulsiveness got him killed.

A soft rap on the office door pulled Chin from his depressing thoughts and he looked up as Che entered the office. Glancing at Ben who had turned back to stare out of the lanai door before returning his attention back to Chin, Che walked slowly across to the desk and handed Chin a slim manila folder. "I have my preliminary report of the accident." Chin nodded silently and placed the manila folder unopened on the desk, not yet willing to read the forensic details of Danny's final moments as Che sat down on one of the white high back chairs in front of Steve's desk and hesitantly began his report. "The car was traveling about 60 miles an hour before Danny…" Che swallowed hard, casting a quick glance at Ben who did not seem to be listening before returning his attention to Chin as he forced himself to continue his report as professionally as he could, "Ummm… the driver lost control on the muddy road causing the car to leave the road and crash over the steep embankment. The fuel tank was ruptured as the car traveled through the undergrowth and the fuel ignited when the car hit the tree, engulfing the car in fire… There…there was no chance for…" Che look down, unable to look at the two men as he cleared the lump from his throat and continued, "There would have been no time for anyone to escape, even if they were able to get out of the car."

"Was there any possibility of any other cars being involved?" Chin asked quietly.

Shaking his head, Che answered, "There were no signs of any other cars involved, all the tire tracks at the scene have been accounted for and there was no damage to Danny's car that indicated that he might have been forced off the road. All the damage to the car is consistent with what I would expect to see from such a high speed collision."

"Could the accident been caused by some mechanical fault with the car? Maybe Danny's brakes failed or the accelerator…"

"I checked," Che replied softly, before taking a deep breath as he looked across at Ben who did not even appear to be listening to the conversation before looking back at Chin, "I'm sorry Guys, but it looks like speed and driver error were responsible for the accident."

"He knew that road was dangerous when it's raining, why was he driving so fast?" Ben demanded as he suddenly spun around to face Chin and Che, his anger, frustration and grief bubbling over.

"Danny might have known that that road was dangerous in the wet," Doc interrupted as he entered Steve's office. "But whoever was driving Danny's car at the time of the accident might not." The three men stared at Doc in surprise as Doc handed Chin the folder containing the autopsy results before he sat down next to Che and continued, "I just finished the autopsy of the driver found in Danny's car and whoever was driving Danny's car was definitely not our young friend."

"Are you sure?" Ben asked hesitantly, as he walked to Steve's desk and looked at the Coroner, unable to believe that the blackened body removed from the shattered remains of Danny's LTD was not his colleague's.

"Positive." Doc reassured Ben before he looked back at Chin and began to explain, "Unfortunately the body was burned beyond recognition, making it difficult to make a positive ID, so I sent for Danny's dental records to help make a positive identification. They weren't a match. The man who died driving Danny's car was definitely not Danny."

"Then who was driving Danny's LTD?" Che frowned as he looked around at the other three men before he asked the question they were all thinking, "And where's Danny?"

H50 H50 H50

_"This was supposed to be just a simple job, just make sure that Sullivan knew to keep his mouth shut at the trial tomorrow! No one was supposed to get hurt, we were just supposed to scare him!"_

_"How the Hell did I know the cop would be there?"_

_"You didn't have to shoot him!"_

_"It was him or us, he was going for his gun! What else was I supposed to do?"_

Michael Sullivan stopped struggling against the ropes that bound him to the chair as he listened in fear to the argument in the next room. His heart was beating wildly in his chest as the memory of the detective's bravery when the three armed men had stormed the house. Williams had tried hard to protect him but the odds had just been too great. He swallowed the hot bile that rose in the back of his throat as he remembered the loud volley of shots before Williams had fallen, the side of the young detective's face had been covered in blood. Closing his eyes, he could still see Williams's motionless body lying on the floor and the burgundy puddle pooling beneath the detective's head as he was dragged out of the house.

_"You going to bring the heat down on us, they're going to be looking for him."_

_"Let them look, they're not going to find anything. Kimo's getting rid of the body and his car. Even if they do eventually find his body there's nothing that's going to lead that dead cop back to us. So stop worrying!"_

_"Stop worrying? Do you know even who that cop you shot was? He was Five-O, and not just any one of McGarrett's Five-O three little piglets. Oh no. you had to shoot his Second-In-Command- Williams!"_

_"So I knocked off McGarrett's Second -In-Command, ain't no big loss, Bruddah."_

_"And what about Sullivan?"_

Holding his breath, Michael strained to hear the rest of the conversation as the men moved away and he heard a door open.

_"What about him?"_

_"He saw what happened to … "_

The slamming of the door cut off the rest of the conversation and the terrified man began to desperately struggle against the ropes that bound him, trying to loosen them.


	3. Chapter 3

"I told you not to turn down this dirt road," Patty Johnston complained at her husband as the car hit another large bump in the road and she grabbed the dash to stop herself from painfully bumping against the window. "We should have stayed on the highway…"

"You always said you wanted to see the real Hawaii." Her husband grinned as he took his hand off the steering wheel and waved towards the thick rainforest that grew close to the road's edge before he quickly grabbed the steering wheel again as the car's rear wheels slid in the soft mud as he teased. "How more real can you get than this? I keep expecting to see a Hawaiian warrior step out from the trees any…"

"Oh God, Brian, stop the car!" Patty gasped staring out of the window at the disheveled figure that staggered out of the tree line and collapsed next to the road.

"What?" Brian asked in confusion as he turned and looked at his wife,

Patty turned, her eyes wide with shock and her face as white as a ghost as she turned and grabbed her husband's arm tightly. "Please Brian, stop the car!"

"Why?" he asked as he slowed the car to a complete stop as fast and as carefully as he could on the slippery track. "What's wrong?"

"There's…there's a man…back there." Patty stammered pointing back in the direction they had just come as she turned and opened the car door and began to scramble out. "I …I think he's hurt."

"A man, where?" Brian frowned as he followed Patty out of the car and down the road, his eyes scanning the side of the road for the man his wife had seen.

"Over here." Patty called as she slid down the slight embankment and dropped to her knees.

Slipping down the embankment to join his wife, Brian stared down at the bloodied and mud smeared young man who was lying face down in the lush undergrowth.

"Do you think he's alive?" Patty whispered as she looked up at her husband, as her hand hovered uncertainly above the young man's back, almost as if she feared touching him.

Kneeling down beside his wife, Brian gently placed his fingers against the man's cool neck, releasing a breath he had not even realized he was holding as he felt a weak beat beneath his fingertips. "He's alive." He told Patty as he rolled the unconscious man over onto his back.

Patty gasped at the sight of the deep rugged wound on the side of the young man's head that was clotted with a mixture of mud and blood.

"That's a gunshot wound." Brian frowned as he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and tried to wipe some of the burgundy gore away.

"Are you sure?" Patty whispered as she glanced at her husband before looking back down at the injured man.

"Of course I'm sure," Brian snapped, "I saw enough of them when I was in Korea to know when I see one." Lowering his voice and gentling his tone, he reached down and slipped his hands beneath the unconscious man's shoulders and began to pick him up as he softly instructed his wife, "Patty, I need you to help me get him into the car. We need to get him to a hospital."

Nodding silently, Patty grabbed the man's legs, staggering a little under the man's weight as she helped Brian carry him up the embankment and to their car.

H5O H5O H5O

Duke glanced up from the notes he had just jotted down as the black LTD slid to a stop just behind the HPD patrol car. He turned to the woman beside him and quickly excused himself before he hurried across to the car.

"Dispatch contacted us at the Palace about Danny being found and taken to the ER." Ben told him as he and Che climbed out of the car and hurried across to meet him.

"Has there been any updates on Danny's condition?" Duke asked as they joined him.

Ben shook his head and sighed. "Nothing, Chin promised to update us as soon as there is any word on Danny's condition." Glancing at the middle aged woman, Duke had been talking to when they arrived, the Five-O detective asked. "Is that one of the tourists who found Danny?"

Nodding as he turned to lead Ben and Che to where the woman stood waiting, Duke answered softly, "Her name is Patty Johnston and her husband is Brian." Duke canted his head in the direction where the man was giving his own version of events to another HPD officer, several feet away from where his wife was now waiting. "They're from New York and are visiting Hawaii to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary. According to Mrs, Johnston, today her husband decided to get away from the usual tourist spots and explore the island a little. That's why they were driving along this road. She saw Danny emerge from the rainforest and collapse near the side of the road. She made her husband stop the car and check on him. As soon as they realized how seriously he was injured, they placed him in the car and raced him to the hospital. I took their initial statements when I arrived at the hospital but I thought I would get them to bring them back here to the precise location where they found Danny and walk us through what happened."

"Thanks Bruddah." Ben said softly as they reached the older woman who was watching them.

After introducing Ben and Che to Patty, Duke asked her to tell them what had happened when she and her husband had first seen Danny.

Ben glanced at the thick rainforest as Patty bit her bottom lip and hesitated for a moment before she nodded to herself and pointed to a small break in the trees. "That's where I saw him come out of the rainforest, he was covered in dirt and blood. At first I thought I was imagining thinks but then…" she paused and swallowed as she remembered the sight of the bloodied young man as he staggered towards the road. Shaking her head, she turned and pointed to an area where the ferns and undergrowth was crushed and flattened as she forced herself to continue. "And that's where he fell. I told my husband to stop the car and when we ran back to where I saw him fall, I…I honestly thought he was dead."

Ben nodded as Che and Duke turned and headed across to the area where Patty had indicated she had first seen Danny emerge from the tree line and began to search.

"I was really scared that he was going to die in the car when we raced him to the hospital. I mean he was shot in the head and there was just so much blood." Patty rushed on before she asked hesitantly, "I overheard one of the policeman talking, he said that the young man was a Five-O detective like yourself. Do you know if he is going to be okay? The doctors wouldn't tell us anything at the hospital when we asked."

"I don't know." Ben answered honestly as he glanced across at Duke and Che as they searched the area where Patty had said she had seen Danny emerge from the forest.

"Ben, we've got a blood trail." Duke called as he turned back to towards Ben.

Excusing himself, and asking Patty to remain where she was, Ben hurried across to where Che and Duke waited for him. before the three of them followed the droplets of blood and trampled undergrowth into the thick tree line being careful not to disturb any evidence that might be collected later. Several slip marks and hand-prints on the wet trail they were following, where it was evident Danny had fallen and then had made himself get to his feet again to continue, told the three men just how hard the hard the journey to try and find help had been for their young colleague.

Reaching the small clearing, Duke froze as he found himself staring at the pile of broken branches, dirt and mud that lay scattered around a shallow, man size hole dug into the damp ground that the trail of blood and broken underbrush they had been following led back to. "Oh my God." He whispered as Che and Ben stepped around him and also froze.

"Danny must have been buried alive." Che breathed in horror, staring at the now empty grave.

Swallowing the hot bile that burned the back of his throat, Ben could only nod.


	4. Chapter 4

 

_"And news just in, a driver has been killed in a fiery crash on a dirt road, just off the Nuuamu Pali Drive. Police_ _state it is believed that speed and driver error may have contributed to the crash and the driver was killed when the car left the road at high speed after sliding in muddy conditions before becoming airborne and smashing into a tree, the car is believed to have erupted into flames on impact. The driver is believed to have been killed instantly. Although the driver's body has not yet been formally identified, an unnamed source from HPD has stated it is believed the driver was Hawaii Five-O's Second-In-Command, Danny Williams."_

Kamaru looked up from the book he was reading and stared in disbelief at the TV as cheers and hoots from the other inmates around him drowned out the newscaster's words. "Did he say Williams? Five-O's Williams?" he asked the man sitting next to him, momentarily uncertain if he had head the name correct.

"Yeah," the inmate laughed in delight, grinning as he turned and looked at Kamaru, "looks like McGarrett's golden boy has turned himself into a slab of overcooked bacon, just a shame McGarrett wasn't in the car with him!"

Turning back to stare at the TV, Kamaru tried to block out the celebratory noises around as he tried hard to listen to the news report as the photo of the burnt remains of a car on a tow truck and a recent photo of Williams taken at a crime scene were shown side by side on the TV screen.

_"Our calls to Hawaii Five-O office to confirm the identity of the dead man is Detective Danny Williams have gone unanswered. We will bring further updates to this breaking story as they become available…"_

"Kamaru!" He spun around as he heard his name shouted by the guard as the guard ordered, "Get yourself down to the visitor's room, wiki wiki, your lawyer's waiting for you."

Slowly rising from his chair, Kamaru glanced back at the TV and grinned, unable to believe his luck if indeed Williams was dead, "I bet he is!"

"Well what the Hell are you waiting for, Kamaru, get moving," the guard growled before he looked back at the rest of the inmates who were all laughing and slapping each other on the back, obviously celebrating something they had just seen on TV and threatened them. "And if the rest of you don't settle down, I will arrange for you all to go into lockdown!"

H5O H5O H5O

Staring into the cup of cold black sludge, tentatively called hospital coffee, that he held between his hands, Chin wondered just how Steve and Danny did this each time someone was injured. The waiting was agony but the fear of not knowing if a colleague was going to recover was nothing short of torture. He sighed and glanced up at the clock on the wall. 3.05 pm. He sighed again, Doc had been with Danny in the examination room for over an hour and there was still no update on Danny's condition. Placing the mug onto the small table beside the chair, Chin rose and walked across to the window before staring out across the hospital's gardens below. He turned when he heard the waiting room door open and watched warily as Doc enter the room. "Doc?" he asked warily.

"He's a very, very lucky young man, Chin." Doc told the worried detective as Chin hurried across to join him. "The bullet grazed the side of his head but, thankfully, it didn't penetrate his skull."

"Thank God." Chin breathed.

"Danny's condition is extremely serious, Chin, he has a severe concussion and suffered massive blood loss from the bullet graze." Doc continued, canting his head towards the chairs that lined the wall in a silent order for Chin to sit so they could talk. Sitting down beside Chin, he quietly continued, "The bullet graze itself is extremely contaminated with mud and debris and we found fine debris and mud in Danny's mouth and throat and X-rays we took of his chest show strange shadows in his lungs."

"Mud in his mouth and throat?" Chin frowned as he stared at Bergman in confusion, "How would he have gotten mud in his mouth and throat?"

"Probably when whoever shot Danny buried him alive!"

Both men looked up as Ben entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"Danny was buried alive?" Chin asked as he stared at his colleague, shocked, "Are you sure?"

Ben nodded as he joined Doc and Chin, "We found an empty, freshly dug shallow grave when we followed the blood trail from where Danny was found back into the rain forest. Che and the boys are going over it now but it looks like someone buried Danny and then tried to cover his body with soil and broken branches and twigs."

"That would explain the mud and debris in the bullet graze and the unidentified shadows we saw in his lungs on the x-rays." Doc murmured, almost to himself as he glanced back towards the closed door before he looked back at the two detectives, the horror being told what had happened to Danny written clearly on his face.

"It looks like Danny somehow managed to dig himself out and get to the road for help." Ben continued, swallowing hard as the memory of the empty grave that Danny had been buried in slammed back into his mind. "He…he was lucky that the two tourist drove past when they did…"

"That boy certainly had a guardian angel watching out for him today," Doc nodded his agreement, "but I'm afraid he's going to be our guest for a few days."

"Can we see him?" Ben asked, desperate to see for himself that Danny was really alive. The last few hours believing Danny had died in that fiery wreck and then discovering that the young man had survived not only being shot in the head but also being buried alive were the kind of stuff that his worst nightmares were made of.

Doc nodded, understanding the two men's desperation to see their young colleague, as he rose from his seat and led the two detectives out of the small waiting room, "Danny is still unconscious and we are preparing to take him up to the OR to debride, clean and then stitch his bullet graze before we settle him into a room. But you can see him for a couple of minutes before we take him up to the OR."

 

 

 


End file.
